It's now late September, temperatures have moderated to the low 70s, and traffic is scarce on the Ohio River Scenic Byway. I'm back in Maysville, KY, on my Honda ST1300, with riding buddy Steve Mauk straddling his Suzuki V-Strom 650. We're both saddled up and rarin' to finish my expedition up the Ohio River to its headwaters in Pittsburgh.

Fog and Floodwall Frescoes

Down, down, down we descend from atop a high bluff, penetrating deep inside the turgid fogbank that clings so tightly to the river. In the gloomy half-light, we can see Maysville's historic district resting on a narrow plain of land adjacent to the confluence of Limestone Creek and the Ohio River. Many of the grand old buildings have been restored, including the prominent Russell Theater. Singer Rosemary Clooney (George Clooney's late aunt) hails from Maysville, and she launched an annual music festival in 1999 to raise money for the theater's renovation.

We stop near the water to gaze at the Simon Kenton Memorial Bridge, fading into the murky vapor midway across the river. The bridge's struts thrust skyward, supporting an orderly collection of cables that allow the roadway to defy gravity high above the river. Floodwalls were erected near the water to protect this low-lying section of Maysville from the occasional vicissitudes of an otherwise tamed river. Exquisitely detailed murals adorn the floodwalls, depicting the town's early history. Standing close to one of the outsized panels, I feel enveloped into the scene of the Ohio River here in the 19th century.

We ride over the eerily shrouded bridge and rejoin the Byway in Ohio. The byway follows the river's course more closely in Ohio than it did in Illinois and Indiana. But the thick fog condenses on our face shields, obscuring most of the river from view. Tar snakes dominate this less-trafficked section of the byway, which looks to have been patched, but not resurfaced in recent memory.

A familiar pattern emerges for many of the small communities we pass through: a burned home not rebuilt, rusted machinery bearing mute witness to more prosperous days, and a weathered barn's Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco sign that's faded almost beyond recognition. These are the towns without a bridge spanning the river and, consequently, deprived of the higher level of commercial activity enjoyed by the "bridge towns." We encounter only a few large trucks traveling the byway here, but it seems as if even they are scurrying away frantically to the nearest bridge town, so not to be trapped in this economic obsolescence.

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